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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23099620">I Heard You Were Sick, So I Made You Some Soup!</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frankenby/pseuds/Frankenby'>Frankenby</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Jane isn’t a hive yet, Jane loves her though, Maybe a bit ooc but I tried, Nikola can’t cook, Sickfic, no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 13:15:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,835</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23099620</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frankenby/pseuds/Frankenby</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane is ill, so her girlfriend tries to take care of her. (Emphasis on the word ‘tries’)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nikola Orsinov/Jane Prentiss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Heard You Were Sick, So I Made You Some Soup!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wanted to go ahead and make my first contribution to this fandom that absolutely consumed me as of recently. The fic prompt is, “I heard you were sick, so I made you some soup.” It’s from this post: <br/>https://scotchymemes.tumblr.com/post/179012553224/fluff-sentence-starters-inspired-by-various-other<br/>I was originally going to do a GerryMichael fanfic with all the prompts because I love them a lot, but I don’t know what happened. This just exists now. I was also gonna just do a bunch of different ships I like with these prompts, but then I decided I didn’t want to do that, so here you go! This ship isn’t a very big one, and I’m not sure why I ship it, but I made a fanfic anyways.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I heard you were sick, so I made you some soup!”</p>
<p>Jane had no idea what time it was, as she hadn’t checked her clock when she reluctantly rose from her bed to answer the person knocking on her door as though they were trying to create a song. It had to have been late, some time after 10:30, as that was when Good Energies closed, and Nikola only ever left when she was certain that her disappearance would be noticed by very few people, or preferably one person, who would then go home and try miserably to convince themselves that mannequins can’t move, and that the one placed in the window display of the crystal shop had most definitely not moved. Nikola also needed time to prepare or acquire the soup she was holding in her hands, which was in a bowl and undoubtedly cold by now.</p>
<p>“Thank you, Nikola,” Jane groaned because having to speak irritated her, not in an emotional sense, but physically. Her sickness had scratched sores into the flesh of her throat, which sprawled in all directions and snaked up to her eyes in the form of red veins. She could hardly breath, as her nose and sinuses seemed to stop working from being so compacted. There was a dull ache in her head that seemed to pulse throughout her entire body. In short, she felt like shit. </p>
<p>But she was sort of appreciative of Nikola’s gesture. She hadn’t been in contact with anyone all day, except for her boss when she told them she was sick. Even though she would have to force herself to attempt to ingest a soup that was likely inedible, Jane thought it was sweet that Nikola was trying.</p>
<p>“Come inside,” Jane offered, then added after a moment. “Before someone sees you.”</p>
<p>“Oh, what’ll they do about it?” Nikola asked, handing the soup to Jane, who accepted it and now noticed that the liquid was clear with some sort of white substance at the bottom. It was then that Jane wondered if Nikola might ever try to poison her, but she couldn’t think of a good reason why, especially when there were other methods Nikola would undoubtedly prefer. Besides, it Nikola didn’t need to deceive her, it just seemed unnecessary to drag everything out if she was just going to peel Jane in the end.</p>
<p>“Well, do you not one to come in?” </p>
<p>“Oh, I do! Thank you!” Nikola said, just as eerily cheery as ever. </p>
<p>Jane stepped to the side, and Nikola walked inside. Well, Nikola’s way of walking was not how a normal human person would walk, which made since because Nikola wasn’t any of those things. She always bent the knee of the leg she put forward—always walking in large strides—and then her leg would snap straight while the other moved just as quickly beside of it. It was like a march. Or a dance. Due to the clothes she was wearing, Jane couldn’t see how her plastic joints looked when they bended, but she was well aware that Nikola didn’t have any joints, as she had changed the mannequin’s outfit several times before knowing she was alive, something Nikola had never mentioned. It was a wonder that nothing had snapped yet.</p>
<p>”You have a lovely home!” Nikola said that every time she came over, and each time she would look around Jane’s flat despite the absence of her eyes and she would smile despite the absence of a mouth. Jane could hear that smile in her voice.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” The first few times Nikola had done this, Jane informed her that she said so before, but Nikola never acknowledged what she said. She was being polite, and so Jane decided to respond in kind. Nikola turned to Jane after surveying her flat, then pressed her fingers to the smooth, white plastic of her face and gasped. She was like a mime trying to express shock to a stadium full of people, but it was sometimes hard to tell what she was feeling, since she couldn’t emote and her time of voice was constant. Jane wondered if she was actually shocked, though.</p>
<p>“Oh, poor Jane! Poor, sweet Jane!” Nikola sounded like she was reading a fairytale to school children. “Poor, sweet, sickly Jane!”</p>
<p>“...what?”</p>
<p>Giving no reason for her outburst, Nikola’s hands fell to her side.</p>
<p>“Drink your soup! It helps!” </p>
<p>Nikola would make a convincing sales person, but Jane really didn’t want to drink whatever she brought. Maybe it wasn’t poisoned—well, intentionally poisoned—but Jane didn’t doubt it was going to taste awful.</p>
<p>“Oh, I meant to ask you. What’s in it?” Jane asked, but Nikola was about as responsive as one would expect a mannequin to be, until she clasped her hands together, making a plastic thinking sound as she did, and rocked on her heels. An overly dramatic display of excitement.</p>
<p>Jane sighed. She knew that heating up the lukewarm liquid wouldn’t help distract from the fact that she probably shouldn’t be drinking it. She didn’t even bother to get a spoon, and instead she brought the rim of the bowl to her lips and sip, trying her best not to swallow any of the white powder that collected at the bottom of it.</p>
<p>It was salt water. The taste of it was so strong and even though Jane’s sense of taste had been dulled by her illness it was horrible. She couldn’t help it, she spit it out, spraying it in her body’s desperation to be rid of it. She managed to keep hold of the bowl, but when she jolted forward a good portion the water splashed onto the floor. It was like a bit from a bad comedy sketch on late night television. Nikola must have had a similar thought, because she was laughing. </p>
<p>“That is not soup,” Jane almost wretched and decided that she never wanted to eat anything salty again. She placed bowl on the counter instead of pouring it down the sink, for whatever reason, and then grabbed a cup from the cupboard and filled it with tap water. Nikola was still laughing as Jane drained her glass, and she had fallen at some point into Jane’s couch.</p>
<p>“Is it not?” It was a genuine question, but Jane still felt like she was being made fun of. “I wouldn’t know the difference! Poor, sweet Jane! Poor, sweet, silly Jane! I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“It’s fine. You... tried. I think,” Jane decided that now was the best time to pour the salt water down the sink, and Nikola gasped again.</p>
<p>“You’re pouring it out?”</p>
<p>“Yeah? I can’t drink this, I’m pretty sure it’ll kill me,” Jane coughed into the crook of her elbow as she discarded the water, and Nikola groaned as if in pain. Jane looked at her. She was still on the couch, her limbs pointing and bending in a fashion that would be impossible for a human. Jane went over and joined her. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>No response. Nikola did not move.</p>
<p>“Nikola?”</p>
<p>Nothing.</p>
<p>“Okay...” Jane sighed, and turned turned to take the remote for the television off of the coffee table. </p>
<p>Nikola weighed a lot more than Jane remembered after having carried her and moved her around the store. She wasn’t exactly heavy, but the force of Nikola launching herself onto Jane was enough to push her on her back. It was the sound that surprised Jane, not Nikola jumping on her. It was sort of like the roar of a train, but it shuddered as it tore from... wherever Nikola’s sound came from. Did she have a voice box? Jane didn’t know, but that didn’t matter.</p>
<p>“What the hell?” Jane tried to come off as stern, but her voice was much to coarse for that.</p>
<p>“Did it work?” Nikola asked, still on top of Jane, but her hands were on the arm of the couch above Jane’s head.</p>
<p>“Did what work?” Jane demanded.</p>
<p>“Did it scare the sickness out of you?”</p>
<p>Jane took a moment to realize.</p>
<p>“That’s hiccups,” Jane wanted to scream, but she didn’t think she would have made a sound if she used that much force.</p>
<p>“Oh, poor Jane,” Nikola sighed. “I’ve gone and messed up again, haven’t I?”</p>
<p>“It’s fine.”</p>
<p>“Oh, sweet Jane. You say that, but you don’t mean it,” Nikola spoke softly, something she didn’t do often. She always projected her voice, like she was speaking to an audience.</p>
<p>“No. Really, it is fine. You’re trying to help, and I know that humans are sort of hard to understand.”</p>
<p>“My sweet Jane,” Nikola practically sang the words as she cupped Jane’s face with her hollow hands. “I would kiss you if I only thought to wear skin before my visit. What do you need me to do for you?”</p>
<p>“Just...” Jane looked at Nikola. She had come to terms with the fact that Nikola existed a long time ago, but the concept of a mannequin who was trying to end the world and wore the skin of people as a disguise was never not weird. She hadn’t gotten used to the fact that this mannequin was her girlfriend, though, and that she was so eager to be a good one despite everything. “Lie there.”</p>
<p>“On top of you?” </p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>Nikola did as Jane asked, draping herself over her body and burying her face—well, where her face would have been, anyways—between Jane’s and the back of the couch. The places where the plastic touches her cooled and soothed Jane’s burning skin. As she almost always did in the rare moments when Nikola was still of when Jane was completely alone, she wondered if she somehow imagined everything that transpired. She wondered if at some point she took the mannequin from the store home in a desperate attempt to simulate human interaction as she futilely tried to pretend she wasn’t alone. </p>
<p>Nikola hummed softly in Jane’s ear, then ran a hand through her hair. She guessed she wasn’t imagining things, then, and if she was she was doing it too well to care.</p>
<p>Nikola kept playing with Jane’s hair. When it was just the two of them, Nikola was almost always moving. Even if all she was doing was drumming her fingers on something or tapping her feet. Maybe she was tired of staying in one position all day. Jane still had no idea why she was staying at Good Energies for so long, and whenever she asked Nikola would vaguely tell her that they needed to find some new skin. It still didn’t explain why she stayed in the same shop.</p>
<p>“Jane, Jane. Darling Jane. My dear Jane. Lovely Jane,” Nikola was singing various praises to no time in particular. Something about it made Jane feel like she was fulfilled, and she managed to fall asleep until she woke up in a coughing fit that night. Nikola had still been laying on top of her, her hands still in Jane’s hair.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>What if you worked at a crystal shop and I was the mannequin in the display window and I fell in love with you and stayed at that store because I enjoyed seeing you every day? Haha, just kidding... unless?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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